August 2010 Newsletter

By Yoram Yahav

I have recently received many requests to write about the “Light House” and the business of “looking from the future”. I thought that I would revisit something I once wrote since it responds directly to the question – What it is all about?

I speak to them in my office, on long airplane flights, during cocktail parties and even while walking at night…Ever since I started to talk and lecture about this new strategically oriented envisioning process and its importance in defining and supporting one’s dreams, friends, colleagues and clients have been approaching me every day with new revelations and ideas.

It is quite remarkable how many of us are so lost in the web of goals and the search for the things that make us tick. I have written about these issues in the past and received literally thousands of responses. Working with the envisioning process which involves “looking at everything from the future”, is so loaded and unusual that I thought it would be worthwhile to add a few more words. More>

What is the true role of the CEO? If you completed an MBA degree at Harvard Business School, MIT Sloan, Wharton, INSEAD, Stanford or any other leading school, within the past four decades, the answer is perfectly clear. Your objective is to make the maximum profit for your shareholders. Period! And since you will likely be CEO for a relatively few years, add the codicil: “maximum profit for the near term” — as in, “the next quarterly statement”.

If you dare give corporate money to charity, Prof. Milton Friedman will say that this is wrong you are giving away the money that rightly belongs to shareholders. In the era of militant shareholders, if you fail to bring short-term profitability, the Board of Directors will send you packing. The CEO position has become a rapidly revolving door.

The result: Disastrous selfish short-term policies that turn out to be as ruinous for the company as they are for the nation in which the company is headquartered. CEOs have become expert at short-term policies that bring rising share prices tomorrow, but prove ruinous in the long run long after the CEO is gone and forgotten.

Once, things were different, in the pre-MBA era. My friend Clyde Prestowitz, author of The Betrayal of American Prosperity, worked for years for Scott Paper, and for its legendary CEO Thomas McCabe. More>

It’s April 30th 2020. I clicked on the Millward Brown Top 100 Brands chart to find at least 24 on the list were Chinese owned. Back in 2010 there were seven.

How did the world’s largest manufacturing sweat-shop emerge to own so many prestigious global brands? What did they do to change the landscape within one decade? What happened to the demise of many western brands that took decades to build? And what could western owned brands have done to better secure their brands?

Back to 2010… Home grown Chinese brands like China Mobile, ICBC and Baidu are flexing their muscle, churning out shiny new logos and elbowing out their western counterparts. Meanwhile Volvo, Rolls Royce, Hummer… are being snapped up by Chinese corporations.

Chinese newspapers recently reported: The decision to acquire western brands is partly a product of the Barbie phenomenon: In China Daily, noted UBS Bank economist Dong Tao explained why; “The busty plastic doll is sold for $20, but the Chinese manufacturer earns only 35 cents from that. The lesson the Chinese have learned: the big money is in owning the brand, not just making it for foreign companies”. A huge boost of encouragement also comes from the Chinese government; “Think Big” is the message they touted. More>